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Mexico resort of Acapulco asks help for heavy debt

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's famous Pacific resort of Acapulco is being inundated, not by rising sea levels, but by a flood of debt.

The city's mayor says the local government has been "collapsed" by a total of $162 million in municipal debt built up by a former mayor. That figure exceeds the beach city's annual budget of about $150 million.

Mayor Luis Walton has asked the federal government to step in to help the city, whose economy was battered after the government moved an annual tourism fair it used to host.

Walton's predecessor said Tuesday that the mayor is exaggerating the city's problems. Former Mayor Manuel Anorve tells local media that he actually reduced the city's debt.

Acapulco has been battered in recent years by a wave of drug-gang violence.